Contents

History

Creation

The Ents are the most ancient people and living creatures surviving in the Third Age[2][3] but were not a part of the Music of the Ainur.[4]Yavanna saw that Eru gave life to Aulë's children, the Dwarves, whom he made from stone; however they were wont to fell trees, and she also asked (through Manwe) for His mercy and to give life to living things, as He did with the Dwarves. At her behest, Ents were trees inhabited by souls[5] created/sent by Eru; or spirits who took the likeness of trees because of their devotion to them.[4][6]

Ents were envisioned as Shepherds of the Trees and their duty was to protect the forests from Orcs, Dwarves and other perils.[6] The males were devoted to Orome while the Entwives were devoed to Yavanna.[4]

The Ents perhaps were created around the same time as the Elves.[5] The Eldar loved to talk to everything and had tales of teaching the trees to talk. They gave them the desire to speak and taught them Elvish.[2]Treebeard said the Elves "curing the Ents of their dumbness" was a great gift that could not be forgotten. [7]

Before even Morgoth returned to the North the first Ents were not as wise or strong as in later times. They developed a language, Entish, which was much simpler back then, and had very small knowledge of other languages.[4]

There used to be Entwives, but during the First or the Second Age they started to move farther away from the Ents because they liked to plant and control small things like vegetables, grass and flowers while the male Ents tended the larger trees of the great forest.[5] The Entwives passed the Anduin and went to the region that would later become the Brown Lands. After Morgoth was overthrown, their gardens blossomed and they taught Men agriculture who honored them.[7]

But a time came in the Second Age when these immense forests were cut by the Númenóreans[9] or destroyed in the calamitous War of the Elves and Sauron during the 17th century of that Age. The shrinking of the forest solidified their separation from the Entwives. The Fangorn Forest was just the Eastern End of that immense forest, and one of its small remnants. The gardens of the Entwives were destroyed by Sauron, and they disappeared. The Ents looked for them in vain and it is sung by the Ents that one day they will find each other but there is very scarce hope that they survived.[10]

In the Third Age, the Fangorn Forest was apparently the only place Ents still inhabited, although the Ent-like Huorns may still have survived elsewhere, as in the Old Forest. The Ents grew old without hope of having Entings without the Entwives. Some grew 'treeish' and ceased moving or speaking and few active Ents remained.[5]Halfast Gamgee saw a walking tree in the north of the Shire. When Pippin and Merry told Treebeard about the Shire, Treebread said the entwives would like that land.

After lengthy deliberation (though from the perspective of the Ents, this was very quick action), they marched on Saruman's fortress at Isengard: the last march of the Ents. They were led by Treebeard, the oldest Ent, and accompanied by the HobbitsMeriadoc Brandybuck and Peregrin Took. They destroyed Isengard in an all-out assault and trapped Saruman in the tower of Orthanc.

Appearance and traits

Ents were 14-foot tall creatures like humanoid trees with very thick skin resembling tree bark. They resembled the trees that they shepherded. An individual Ent more or less resembled the specific species of tree that they typically guarded or honored, to the point of the personality one might expect from that tree.[5] Thus they varied in height and size, colouring, and n number of fingers and toes. For example, Quickbeam guarded rowan trees and thus looked very much like a rowan.

There were trees that were awake or half-awake, and some were entish and Ents could awake or talk with some of them. Treebeard aroused some Huorns to destroy Isengard.[12]

Ents were nourished by Ent-draughts and were seemingly immortal although they could be burned. Along with their immortality they were deliberate and slow in thought, decision and action, something reflected to their language. However once aroused they possessed great strength, which resembled the age-long action of trees accelerated, crushing rocks and moving earth in seconds.[5] Treebeard boasted that they were much more powerful than Trolls, which Morgoth supposedly made as imitations of the Ents (he compares this with how Orcs were an imitation of Elves).

The length and speed of an ent-stride was about 4 feet. With about 2.2 strides per second, an Ent could cover a speed of about 6 miles per hour[13]

The word Ent is derived from Old Englishent, meaning "giant" (from eoten, Norsejotun), although the Ents were unrelated to the giants or the jotuns.[14][16] It has been noted that ent "probably means some kind of giant", but that the exact usage or meaning of the word in Old English is unknown.[17]

Portrayal in Adaptions

Ents in The Lord of the Rings (film series) were portrayed as, perhaps, more tree-ish than in the books. For example, the books describe them as having smooth skin; the movie has them with skin like thick and rough bark. In the movie adaption, the Ents at the Entmoot decide that this is "not our war", despite strong protest from Merry. The scene is also shorter, cutting out Bregalad completely; Treebeard is the only Ent who is named and speaks on screen.

Treebeard is about to take them north to the border, when Pippin insists that they go South instead, because "the closer we are to danger, the farther we are from harm". This "does not make sense" to Treebeard, but he does as they ask, and sees the ruin and destruction that Saruman has wrought on southern Fangorn. Treebeard then calls the Ents to battle with his booming Ent-call, and they appear out of the forest as if they had been standing there waiting for it. That they do not know the borders of their own forest is another possible logical gap. But others have accepted Jackson's technique as valid, because of the seemingly minor actions of Merry and Pippin throughout The Two Towers.

In the storyline missions, Ents are assisting Merry and Pippin in the escape from the Uruks as well as destroying Isengard concurrent with the Battle of Helm's Deep. In the skirmish mode, Ents can be summoned both as a "Magic" power by all free peoples and as permanent units by the Rohan faction.

Prior to the release of Rise of Isengard) expansion, the only Ent appearing in the game was the one called Longbough, who could found in the Eavespires in Evendim.[18]Rise of Isengard expansion and subsequent updates introduced more Ent characters, among them Quickbeam, Gnarlstump, Thickbark, Greylimb and Twistroot. A creature similar to Ents is called Bog-lurker, said to have assisted the Ents in the shepherding of the trees.[19]